The debate about global warming is over. A Texas pastor has come up with a watertight theory that will shame the swathe of scientists that have concluded, through precise calculations and years of theoretical modelling, that the rise in the earth’s average temperature is a result of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Rather than man-made carbon emissions, global warming is in fact due to… the imminent return of Jesus. How did the scientists miss it? Speaking to his flock in a recent TV broadcast, Matthew Hagee explains that when scientists contradict the world of God, “God’s word is accurate and men are wrong”.

Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? And I’ve even read the Bible multiple times, you’d think I would have caught the part about climate change and how we shouldn’t worry about it. Let’s see what proof Matthew Hagee found in the greatest text in the world.

As the pastor explains: “The Bible says that whenever we approach the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strange weather patterns. Jesus said this in Matthew the twenty-fifth chapter.

“So we have a decision to make: do we believe what an environmentalist group says and choose to live in a world where we’re attempting to make everything as clean in the air as possible, or do we believe what the Bible says, that these things were going to happen and that rather than try to clean up all of the air and solve all of the problems of the world by eliminating factories, we should start to tell people about Jesus Christ who is to return?”

*facepalm* Matthew 25? How stupid am I not to have noticed that? I mean, I was thinking that he found the proof hidden deep in one of the less flashy books in the Bible, something like Titus, Chapter 3 or Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11, Verses 2-6, but right there in one of the Gospels? I mean, fuck! There are only 4 of them, and everyone who reads the Bible has read them. Hell, even most people who say they have read the Bible when what they really mean is they believe in the Bible and are Christian so they are going to tell pollsters that they have read the Bible have read at least one of the Gospels. I see it now, it is all so clear to me…….

Wait a second. Matthew 25? *sound of pages flipping*

Okay kids, all together now:

Wait, What?!?

Matthew 25 is long enough that I am not going to quote it here. It consists of the Parable of the Ten Virgins, the Parable of the Silver Pieces, and The Last Judgement. (Or NIV version, The Parable of the Ten Virgins, The Parable of the Bags of Gold, and Sheep and Goats.) In fact, here is the NIV version, in case you do not have your Bible ready at hand.

I am well and truly sorry, but I am going to have to call “shenanigans” on Pastor Matthew Hagee. If I were forced to bet on the matter, my money would be on the good Pastor figuring he could tell believers whatever the fuck he wanted to and claim that Jesus said it as well, because he knew that not one of the believers he was talking to would check to see if he was actually full of shit. Of course, that is if I was a betting man. Pastor M. Hagee could have meant to cite a different chapter, or he could actually believe he sees Jesus saying what he claims he says, through his personal way of reading between the lines. But I doubt it.

Think about it. Sure, we know that Matthew 25 does not say what he claims it says. But he isn’t talking to us. He isn’t going to change some progressives mind on climate change by quoting the Bible anymore than we are going to change some conservatives mind by showing them peer reviewed studies. This is just one more roadblock in the way of meaningfully dealing with climate change. Now there is a group of people who believe Jesus predicted it in Matthew 25 and it is therefor a good thing. In addition to the other groups with their own mind-numbingly dumb objections to science and reality. If you made it through this winter without hearing the words, “God, it is cold and there is so much snow. I bet those people who believed in global warming feel stupid now.” then you are a luckier person than me.

About the Author

Described as "intelligent but self-destructive," Foster Disbelief spent his twenties furiously attempting to waste his potential in a haze of religion and heroin. Science and atheism allowed him to escape his twin addictions and he now spends his days attempting to make the most of his three remaining brain cells.